Getting Started

with

EL IVING
SSENTIAL
FOR

What, Why, and How

Patrick McGreevy
Troy Fry
 GS with EFL: page 1

W hat am I doing here…

In this era of multiple forms of effortless access to information,
it has become difficult for many of us [including myself] to
exert the effort that some materials seem to require. Such
has been our experience with many of those who have
purchased or considered purchasing Essential for Living.
Many readers of the first few pages of the
4'SSl�N'l,l1ll.. Essential for Living handbook often describe
� l�f)ll
�I\TINCJ
A Communication, Behavior
their experience as overwhelming. While the
and Functional Skills
Curriculum, Assessment and
Professional Practitioner's Handbook authors should have done something about
this several years ago [okay, maybe seven
For Children and Adults
with Moderate-to-Severe
Disabilities

or eight], then was then and now is now. So,

let’s get started; and, we promise…
Patrick McGreevy
and Troy Fry

it’s not difficult and it won’t take long…

W hat is Essential for Living

Essential for Living is a life skills curriculum and assessment
instrument for children and adults of all ages with moderate-
to-severe disabilities, limited skill repertoires, and, sometimes,
aggressive, destructive, or self-injurious behavior.
This instrument is based on the concepts, principles, and
evidence-based procedures from Applied Behavior Analysis
(ABA), B. F. Skinner’s functional and pragmatic analysis of
language [verbal behavior], Direction Instruction, or Precision
Teaching. When evidence is not available, Essential for Living
is based on the direct experience of the authors: 55 years for
Patrick McGreevy and 35 years for Troy Fry.
 GS with EFL: page 2

Essential for Living is designed for children and adults who

struggle with everyday speaking, listening, daily living, and
tolerating skills, as well as, abstract concepts and academic
skills. Curriculum-based assessment instruments referenced to
typical child development [the ABLLS, the VB-MAPP, or the
ESDM] or formal academic skills [the Common Core or the
Alternate Assessment State Standards] and designed to help
these children and adults ‘catch up’ to their peers or these
standards are often used with these children and adults.
These instruments, for our children and adults, offer only a
range of unreasonable expectations. Essential for Living, on
the other hand, is referenced to ‘quality of life’ and will take
our children and adults to everyday life skills required in
concrete settings, which they can and often will learn to
perform quite well.
Essential for Living [EFL] is a ‘deep dive’ into life skills that are
actually required in everyday living, rather than a checklist of
seemingly useful skills. For example, reading the signs on the
doors of public restrooms [for example, MEN, WOMEN] is
seemingly useful in order to enter the appropriate restroom.
A deep dive into this skill, however, indicates that reading is
neither necessary, nor required, and that matching the signs
with your behavior or that of others is the skill that is actually
required. As a result, many of our children and adults who
have not learned to read, can easily learn to perform this
essential life skill.
EFL begins by assessing and teaching the Essential Eight Skills,
along with leisure skills, and gradually proceeds to teaching
should-have, good-to-have, and nice-to-have speaking skills,
listening skills, daily living skills, and tolerating skills that are
both frequently required and useful in everyday living.
 GS with EFL: page 3

As you become acquainted with EFL, you will notice features

that encourage you to record small increments of learner
progress, teach to fluency, generalization, and critical skill
outcomes, and to implement a post-school transition plan
that results in a happy and fulfilling life. A deep dive into life
skills and these features distinguish Essential for Living as ‘the
premier life skills curriculum’.

W hy use Essential for Living

Many of our children in public school classrooms and private
clinics and many of our adults in day activity programs or at
home are participating in activities that are designed to be
instructional, but that ‘aren’t going anywhere’, that is, aren’t
improving or leading to an improvement in the quality of
their lives.
Dr. McGreevy was recently visiting a classroom in the New
York City public schools. He sat down at a table where the
teacher was working with a seven-year-old boy with no
spoken words or alternative method of speaking and very
limited motor skills. She was teaching him to match lower
case letters, a to a, b to b, and so on. After a few minutes of
observation, he asked her, “does it ever strike you that, for
this child, this skill isn’t going anywhere?”. She responded by
saying, “Dr. McGreevy, it strikes me that way every day…
please show me something else I could teach him that
would matter to him”. How many child and adults are in ‘the
same boat’?
The thousands of children and adults ‘in the same boat’ are
the reason to use Essential for Living.
 GS with EFL: page 4

H ow to get started…
Obtain a copy of the EFL handbook and read 4'SSl�N'l,l1ll..
� l�f)ll
pages 1-3. Then, STOP. These pages describe �I\TINCJ

what EFL is all about. Then, turn to page 28; the

A Communication, Behavior
and Functional Skills
Curriculum, Assessment and
Professional Practitioner's Handbook

first part of this page describes the 4 activities

For Children and Adults
with Moderate-to-Severe
Disabilities

of an assessment. Then, turn to page 39, which Patrick McGreevy

describes how to conduct…

and Troy Fry

Activity 1: Conduct the EFL Quick Assessment

Get temporary access to the EFLAPP by sending an email to:
[email protected]. Then, use this APP to conduct the EFL Quick
Assessment with a child or adult or use the paper and pencil
forms on the essentialforliving.com website:
http://essentialforliving.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/
EFL-QuickAssessForms.pdf.
When you have completed the EFL Quick Assessment, you
will have a list of ‘possible skill deficits’ for that child or adult.
On the EFLAPP, this list will appear on the screen as skills
after which the QA box is shaded in yellow. If you use
the paper and pencil forms, you will need to make a list
of these skills from those ‘in bold’ after the answers that
have been selected.
Then, return to page 28 and proceed to…
Activity 2: Determine if Your Child or Adult needs an
Alternative Method of Speaking
Use the new AMS Selection Tool, a free APP, which you can
find on the Essential for Living website under the All About EFL
menu or at:
https://datamakesthedifference.com/ams-selection-tool
 GS with EFL: page 5

This tool will help you determine if your child or adult can use
spoken words effectively or if she or he needs an alternative
method of speaking. If an alternative method is required, it
will help you select a method which is consistent with the skill
repertoire of this child or adult.
If your child or adult already has an alternative method, it will
help you determine if that method is effective.
Once you have selected a method or confirmed the use of
a current alternative method, return to pages 65-67 of the
EFL handbook, which will describe procedures for testing
and confirming the effectiveness of this method.
You should also consider using the CAFE criteria to estimate
the likelihood that this method will last a lifetime, that is…
is this method of speaking…
CA [continuously available]
F [frequently used], and
E [effortless
All three criteria must be met to insure that this method of
speaking will last a lifetime.
Then, return to page 28 and proceed to…
Activity 3: Scan the must-have, should-have, and
good-to-have skills and add ‘possible
skill deficits' not suggested by Activity 1
Scan the EFL handbook, one of the scoring manuals, or the
EFL APP to determine if you want to include additional skills
into your child or adult’s instructional program beyond those
suggested by the EFL Quick Assessment. Then, proceed to…
 GS with EFL: page 6

Activity 4: Confirm and determine the extent of ‘skill deficits

suggested by Activity 1 and Activity 3
Confirm and determine the extent of these ‘skill deficits’
using procedures described on pages 28-29 or procedures
with which you are familiar [for example, prompt codes and/
or percent]. These new procedures will permit you to record
small increments of progress and teach to both fluency and
generalization, so that skills will occur when and where they
are required and so that these same skills will last a lifetime.
Then, as described on pages 33-35, you can use these same
procedures to record the progress of your child or adult. It
will should take only about 2 weeks to become familiar with
these new procedures.
Then, as you continue to use EFL, you can begin to explore
skills and procedures that will enhance the quality of life of
many other children and adults with similar disabilities and
skill deficits.

W hat your environment will look like

As you begin to use EFL with these children and adults in
school and clinic settings, you will find yourself beginning to
transform the appearance of your classroom or clinic. This
transformation is best described in the slogan of P224Q, a
school in New York City…
If it doesn’t happen ‘out there’ [in your community], it’s not
happening ‘in here’ [in the classroom or clinic]. This includes
the skills and the context in which these skills are taught…
Your classroom or clinic will gradually begin to look like your
community.